Seahawks fans get their wish: Troymaine Pope is on Seattle’s 53-man roster

This news is a little late, as it was basically paired with the news that the Seattle Seahawks waived Christine Michael on Tuesday, but it’s worth sharing nonetheless; because this is what you’ve been asking for Seattle fans.

The Seahawks have promoted running back Troymaine Pope to the 53-man roster, finally matching the preseason hype train via the Pope-mobile with Thomas “the Tank Engine” Rawls. It’s the type of moment that millions of Seattle residents needed this year, even if the population of Seattle is only about 650,000.

It was a long and unlikely road for Pope to get here.

The undrafted free agent out of Jacksonville State was not invited to the combine, he was passed over time after time, he did not sign with any team after the draft, only getting a rookie tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs, he was available to be had by any team going into August, he signed with the Seahawks only because of the injuries to Rawls and CJ Prosise and at least one or two others, he was released during final cuts, he was picked up by the New York Jets and active only once, released again, signed back to Seattle’s practice squad, and seemingly buried on the depth chart behind Michael, Prosise, Alex Collins, and Michael.

But Troymaine re-mains.

The Seahawks host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday and though it isn’t certain which players will be inactive, for the first time Pope will be an option for Pete Carroll to have on game day. We know that Rawls and Prosise will be there, but did they make this move with Pope now because they know they want him to play now? I would assume so, and they’ll needed as much insurance as they can get with Rawls missing the last two months and most of the offseason, but it also wouldn’t be surprising if Seattle never uses the third or fourth running back, because that’s not unusual.

Neither was Pope’s path to this moment though, so never count him out of doing anything.